Results are in

. 

Point Guards

1. Chris Paul (1.6)
2. Derrick Rose (2.6)
3. Deron Williams ( 2. 9)
4. Steve Nash (3.7)
5. Russell Westbrook (5.2)

Honorable Mention (in order of votes): LeBron James, Rajon Rondo, Andre Miller

Shooting Guards

1. Dwyane Wade (1.4)
2. Kobe Bryant (1.6)
3. Manu Ginobili (3.8)
4. Joe Johnson (4.4)
5. Andre Iguodala (5.1)

Honorable Mention (in order of votes): Kevin Martin, James Harden, Monta Ellis, Brandon Roy

Small Forwards

1. Kevin Durant (1.4)
2. Lebron James (1.6)
3. Carmelo Anthony (3.8)
4. Paul Pierce (4.8)
5. Danny Granger (4.9)

Honorable Mention (in order of votes): Luol Deng, Gerald Wallace, Grant Hill, Andre Iguodala, Rudy Gay, Shawn Marion

Power Forwards

1. Dirk Nowitzki (1.1)
2. Amare Stoudemire (2.1)
3. Pau Gasol (4.0)
4. Zach Randolph  (4.1)
5. Blake Griffin (4.4)

Honorable Mention (in order of votes): LaMarcus Aldridge, Lamar Odom, Josh Smith, Chris Bosh

Centers

1. Dwight Howard (1.0)
2. Al Horford (3.8)
3. Andrew Bogut (4.5)
4. Joakim Noah (4.8)
5. Marc Gasol (4.9)

Honorable Mention (in order of votes): Andrew Bynum, Tyson Chandler, Nene Hilario, Marcin Gortat, Amare Stoudemire, Pau Gasol, Tim Duncan

 

Some semi-interesting notes:

• Seems pretty obvious, but Dwight Howard was the only consensus #1 at his position. Dirk almost got there, but had one 2nd place vote.
• The race for the #1 shooting guard and small forward were the closest with both Durant and DWade receiving 2 extra 1st place votes. Remember those LeBron vs. Kobe commercials debating who the best player in the league was? Guess those times are over.
• Even with the obvious bias that comes with ranking players on a team blog, we only ended up with the 4th best PG and that's it.
• Sorry SNQP and flagsuns, including Hakim Warrick on any top 5 ranking that isn't "NBA player most likely to be blown over by a gust of wind" gets your ranking omitted.
• Former Suns who made the list include Amare Stoudemire (#2 PF) and Joe Johnson (#4 SG).
• Future 2012 free agents who made the list were ,, Dwight Howard (#1 C)
• All five of the top point guards will be free agents in 2012. Steve Nash (#4 PG) will be an unrestricted FA, Chris Paul (#1 PG) and Deron Williams (#3 PG) both have player options, and both Derrick Rose (#2 PG) and Russell Westbrook (#5 PG) will have qualifying offers.
• The only other 2012 FA on the list is Dwight Howard (#1 C). Marc Gasol (#5 C) is a FA right now.
• 12 of the 30 teams in the league don't have a top 5 player at their positions (Charlotte, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Golden State, Houston, Minnesota, Portland, Sacramento, Toronto, Utah, and Washington).
• 7 of the 30 teams have 2 players that made the list (Atlanta, Chicago, LA Lakers, Memphis, Miami, New York, and Oklahoma City)

Thanks to everyone who posted their rankings. To everyone else, I stick my tongue out at you. I'll leave it with a poll.

Poll

Out of the #1 ranked players. Choose the top dog.

4%

Chris Paul

2 votes

8%

Dwyane Wade

4 votes

24%

Kevin Durant

12 votes

38%

Dirk Nowitzki

19 votes

24%

Dwight Howard

12 votes

49 votes | Poll has closed

As most of you I'm sure know, ESPN has been doing their NBA Player Rankings and then discussing each one in a roundtable. I've been waiting a while to see where our beloved Steve Nash would fall on their list and by my calculations, it's likely he gets named today somewhere in their 16-20 ranks. If he doesn't get named today, it's a lock that he'll be named on Friday.

via cdn.bleacherreport.net

For me, it's been a nice distraction from the lockout crap going on right now. But since we all know that ESPN kind of sucks and Bright Side of the Sun is all kinds of anti-suck, I figured it would be fun to get some rankings going here.

 

So here it is.. Name the top 5 players in each position. We're doing it by position because I like that type better than themore subjective overall rankings. You can name the top 10 or 20 in each position if you feel like it, but only the top 5 is required. After a week or so, I'll collect all the rankings, do some mathematics, and give you our consensus positional rankings. That's it.. so get to it Bright Siders!

I know we have a widespread fanbase and community here at BSOTS and I know where a lot of the posters are from, but I was curious to see the numbers of where everyone is currently living.

I tried to split this poll into equal regions (as far as fans here) and I could be totally off. Geography is not a strong suit of mine at all, so there might be a good chance I left out half the world. If that's the case, let me know and I'll fix it. Also, feel free to specify where you live in the comments.

In this article from azcentral, Leandro makes a few comments about the trade rumors and the Shaq trade.... The quote that caught my eye was this one.

A Brazilian sports newspaper, Lance, asked Suns guard Leandro Barbosa about talk that he might wind up following D'Antoni to New York.

"It's not a rumor," Barbosa said while in his hometown, Sao Paolo. "I will play where I have to play. It's business.

This seems like a huge change from the Leandro who was almost in tears when he was fooled into thinking he was traded to the Knicks midseason this past year.

The article also mentions reports that the Nets have interest in Barbosa. This doesn't make sense to me as they just traded for Devin Harris who is a similar player to Barbosa. Who else would they be looking to offer for him?

I haven't been in favor of many of the deals I've heard involving Leandro but this is one I might not mind. Josh Howard for Barbosa? I'm not sure how likely it is, but it also mentions Diaw for Howard. I would take either deal in a heartbeat considering a lot of last season, Josh Howard was the best player on the Mavs. He would be someone who could come in and start right away in front of Grant Hill.

If you would have asked me last season if we should be making any moves involving trading Barbosa, I would have said no way. But now that we are Suns + Shaq & Kerr - Marion & D'Antoni, I'm not sure what we should do. What do you guys think?

NBA.com has a "NBA Playoff Seeding Scenarios" posted.
http://www.nba.com/news/playoff_scenarios_080416.html

3 of the Scenarios have Phoenix playing the Spurs, 2 playing Utah, and 1 playing Houston.

The only thing that confuses me is how does Houston have homecourt in the series against us if we are the 4th Seed and they're the 5th?

.

(Higher Seeded team has homecourt in first round unless otherwise indicated)
1. If Houston and San Antonio win:
3-San Antonio
4-Utah
5-Houston (homecourt)
6-Phoenix

2. If Houston, Utah and Phoenix win:
3-Utah
4-Phoenix
5-Houston (homecourt)
6-San Antonio

3. If Utah wins and Phoenix loses:
3-Utah
4-San Antonio
5-Houston
6-Phoenix

4. If San Antonio and Phoenix wins and Houston loses:
3-San Antonio
4-Utah
5-Phoenix (homecourt)
6-Houston

5. If San Antonio wins and Houston and Phoenix lose:
3-San Antonio
4-Utah
5-Houston
6-Phoenix

6. If Utah and Phoenix wins and Houston loses:
3-Utah
4-Phoenix
5-San Antonio
6-Houston

I wasn't really sure where to post this since I didn't want to make this seem like just an ad for my ebay auction, but I thought some of you might be interested. I designed and made these shirts for a bunch of friends and have some extras. As of right now I have at least 1XL, 3L, 3M, and 3S. If I run out and there are more people who want them, I might end up ordering more, just let me know.

You can view the shirts at this link, but for anyone on here who wants one, you can get them through me for $16.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280182713276

bri@gia.net

Again, sorry if this seems like an ad, but I just wanted to let you guys know.

Well, this is my first post on the site so I figured I'd kill two birds and make it my first diary, too.

It could be that I am still in denial, but I for one don't think that a deal for Marion will be done. Neither do I think it should be done unless we are getting equal value for him, which is very unlikely.

Here are a couple things that I find sort of ironic about this whole thing.

1. Shawn says he's sick of hearing his name brought up in trade rumors, but the Suns have never followed through with any of these trades (except for maybe the Garnett trade which would make sense). But now that Marion actually wants a trade, I think he'll find out that the Suns don't actually want to trade him and more than not, the trade rumers were just talk.
   
2. If there was a reason for the Suns to be looking to trade Marion, it would be because of his huge salary. He is already the highest paid player on the team and knows that the Suns are very worried about the luxury tax. But now, he wants to bring up a contract extension (before his contract is even up) for 3 more years where he'd be paid even more money? If he really wanted to stay in Phoenix, wanted the trade rumors to stop, and if it really wasn't just about the money, wouldn't he be happy with a slightly smaller deal?

It just doesn't make sense to me, but I agree with Bill Simmons and many others that he's the 2nd most important player on the team. If we get rid of him, we are severely hurting our chances for a title. And like he said, he's a professional and likes all of his teammates so I don't think the chemistry will be hurt as bad as if we were to give him up for a lesser player. SHAWN, DON'T GO!!

I'll end with a few articles that I found interesting that you may not have seen yet.

Jack McCallum (Author of ":07 or less") tries to answer some of the questions that come with the "Marion Paradox".
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/jack_mccallum/09/27/marion/index.html

Another SI article that goes through possible trade scenarios. Other than AK47 and Odom, he adds the slight possibilities of Richard Jefferson or Ron Artest.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/marty_burns/09/26/marion/index.html

And lastly, an article from Sporting News that gives the Lakers for Odom trade a 50/50 chance.
http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=277969